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Thursday, October 8, 2009

Patch 3.3: Tier 10 Set Bonuses

/sigh... Here we go again.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, MMO-Champion has pulled apart the latest PTR build and found the Tier 10 set bonuses. You can find them here.

One of the themes for Moonkin in WotLK has been to fight against sub par Set Bonuses. The tier 7 bonuses were satisfactory for the most part, and everyone loves 2T9. However, it has been a bumpy road other than that. The 2 piece T8 use to buff Eclipse by 6% instead of the 15% it is now. The 4T8 set bonus was bugged and we had to fight to get it fixed. The 4T9 set bonus bordered on insultingly bad as just a 3% increase to crit chance for Wrath and Starfire, but was upgraded to a 4% damage buff for both spells. Given this history, I guess it is fitting that we have issues with the Tier 10 set bonus. The good news is that Blizzard has reviewed our bonuses in the past and made changes. Hopefully, Tier 10 won't be different.

One last thing. It is important to remember that data mined information is data mined. While much of it is usually correct, there are plenty of examples where the data mined info included out of date info or info that is just plain wrong. It is quite possible that Blizzard has something else planned but is not currently included in the patch build.

4 Piece Tier 10:Reduces the cooldown on your Eclipse talent by 6000.

I'm talking about this one first because it is the most troubling. Obviously, we can't take the number 6000 seriously because you can't reduce Eclipse by 6000. That said, it is still an obviously bad set bonus. The set bonus could be that Eclipse has no cooldown and it would still be obviously bad.

To highlight the issue I have to ask only one question. Since 3.2, when has the Eclipse cooldown ever been a limiting issue?

Sure, with the use of WiseEclipse the Eclipse cooldown can be slighly limiting, and it would probably be benifical to cancel Solar Eclipse to reproc Lunar Eclipse during Bloodlust/Heroism. However, those are either rare or very minor situations.

The reason this is a bad set bonus is obvious once you consider some facts.

The Eclipse buff lasts 15 seconds. The Eclipse cooldown is 30 seconds. Even if you chain proc the Eclipse buffs, the two buffs combined would eat up the 30 second cooldown. This isn't entirely true if you use an addon like WiseEclipse, but I have a hard time believing that Blizzard would build a set bonus around an addon that most users think is a little shady.

Math that I and many others have done shows that the two Eclipse buffs are very similar in value a majority of the time. Therefore there is no real value in using one over the other in most situation.

If there is no reason for you to force one Eclipse to proc over the other, and there is no way you would proc Eclipse more quickly naturally, then it is obviously not a buff.

I haven't done any math on it but the best way to modifiy this buff in my opinion is to have it extend the Eclipse buff rather than reduce the cooldown. I'm pulling numbers off the top of my head, but if it extended Eclipse's length to 20 or 25 seconds instead of 15, then it would increase the uptime of the buff and it would work better with other buffs like Heroism and on use trinkets.

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure how Omen of Clarity works. Historically, it has had a speed based proc chance that may or may not be impacted by haste. The proc rate is reportedly based around 2 procs per minute. WoWWiki has a report that says it has about a 6% proc rate. To find out the real impact I will have to look at some logs but let's assume for a second that it procs 2 times per minute. Let's also assume that the procs don't over lap.

If these two assumptions are true then the buff would be up for 12 seconds per minute or 20% of the time. Therefore, if fully utilized then this set bonus would buff your Arcane and Nature Damage by 2% on average (10%*20%). In actuality it will be less than that, because part of the buff will not be effective since damage is calculated at the end of the cast .

Another big question is how this buff would be applied? Is it additive or multiplicative?

Historically, buffs that affect specific spells, like Moonfury, are additive. Global buffs, like Earth and Moon, are multiplicative. It's hard to tell which one this buff will be since it specifies schools of damage, but it covers everything we could cast.

It's important to ask, because it will have an impact on the value of the buff. A multiplicative buff of 10% is a 10% buff to damage. An additive buff of 10% will be worth less due to the way it combines with other buffs. Improved Moonfire is a great example of where a 10% buff can get completely lost and overshadowed by a larger buff.

I can't make a firm statement on this set bonus yet, because I don't understand all of the parts completely. However, I will say this. It does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. I don't like the fact that it is based upon a talent that we don't necessarily need since there are some moonkin dropping OoC. I don't like the fact that it is another random proc for a spec that is already swimming in random procs. I don't like that the buff is only 6 seconds and could easily get swallowed up by movement or a delay in fight mechanics. It could be great, but it doesn't feel right.

Tier 10 Art:

I don't usually comment on the art of the game, but take a look at this picture.

I haven't decided if I like it, but it is definitely interesting. It's kind of like a demonic tree. This image was taken from MMO-Champion.

22 comments:

I made a lot of the same complaints on my post about the moonkin set bonuses. They have really good resto & feral bonuses, and then come up with random junk for moonkin bonuses... I really can't wait for Cataclysm to come out so we can change up moonkin's rotation enough that Blizzard can come up with good set bonuses....

imo even the really nice set bonuses like 2t8 that buff damage really well, I must say, most of them have been fairly boring (with maybe the exceptiong of 4t8). Most of them are just arbitrary buffs to our damage that we're already doing. One set bonus that I saw that I really liked was the 4t7 bonus for mages. Sure, mages used their mana gems anyway, but it gave you a real reason to really want to pop that. Moonkin bonuses on the other hand have been 15% crit, 4% extra damage, critting dots (that would be a little interesting if everyone didn't get critting dots this tier), etc.

One complain I have about Moonkin DPS is our cooldowns mostly suck. Starfall got a nice buff and its great for proccing the Fetish of Volatile Power, and I can't complain too much about that one. However, Force of Nature could be a really amazing cooldown if it wasn't the same at every gear level. Many other DPS classes have cooldowns that scale really well with their gear level, like bladestorm, mirror image, death wish, rapid fire, etc. Our treants do the same amount of damage whether we're in greens or full T9. A set bonus I think would be interesting is to buff the damage on our treants by a certain % of one of our stats, like perhaps SP or int. Not only would that make our treants moar viable as a cooldown, but it'd be a really fun set bonus! The OoC set bonus I think would be nice if it was strong enough, but I think Moonkin DPS is too random already.

(Long time lurker and reader, feeling the need to make some comments :)

I'm going to guess that the "6000" is a placeholder for the Eclipse set bonus while they figure out what the numbers should be. It doesn't even have a unit attached to it, so it makes little sense.

As for the Clearcasting proc, that's not even a Balance talent. Granted, every moonkin that gets tier 10 is going to have it, but what's up with giving us a tier bonus that revolves around a talent in our filler tree? On the one hand, I like that they're trying to find interesting ways to give us set bonuses rather than just adding damage to a spell, but it really feels like they have no idea what to do with moonkin and are reaching blindly for solutions.

The moment I saw these bonuses I was disappointed. I feel blizzard is really blind about what is truly beneficial to our class. What I would like to see is a bonus affecting wraths chance to proc eclipse. Example: Your wrath critical strikes now have a 15% increased chance to proc eclipse. Tier bonuses affecting a spell not all moonkins will have (OoC) is a very poor thoughtout plan imo.

Amen. Why must this always be an uphill, barefoot in the snow kind of battle? The following is taken from my post in the Blue thread-

As for suggestions... it's hard for me to come up with something that isn't just a rehash of a previous bonus. Aside from our 4 spells in rotations our only extra buttons are Starfall and Treants, both of which are already situational (don't want to use Starfall when I'm spamming wrath, about to be stunned or watching CC) and as for the trees, I have to save them for Heroism if it's a short fight or risk losing all that added dps to pop them early. And then they die in a fire. (although recent AoE changes may help with that)

Going way back to the 4p T9 bonus, I know most of us were underwhelmed with it and it was only after calculations by Graylo and others that combined with the stat bonuses it was indeed an upgrade. I don't like having our set bonuses relying on the piece itself as a crutch to make it worthwhile.

We don't have as many spells/talents to work with that change things up such as Backdraft, Hot Streak and Missile Barrage. Those are fun! Moonfire dots critting is fun! It's extra damage on a spell that is already at near 100% uptime, a guaranteed dps increase. How about something like Living Seed proc, but for damage? "When your Insect Swarm expires, the target is hit instantly for damage equal to the full duration of the spell." or something to that effect. Or "Reduces the cooldown on Force of Nature by 1.5 minutes and icreases their damage by 15%" More bang for your buck for a notoriously squishy "pet".

As far as the way the set looks... eh it's brown and green. Again!! Sigh. The sets all seem "corrupted" somehow, which is fitting. I just wish we could branch out (haha) into other colors of the spectrum for a change.

@Lissanna I can't wait for Cataclysm either but I really wish it didn't take 3 expansions to get this basic crap on par with everyone else. =( Ugh!

DRUID]:[BALANCE]2 piece – Aweful... Waiting on a 4 pc to swap gear in is unacceptable.4 piece – I think everyone is not taking what this says @ face value. Let me edit from above with the bonus. "Each effect lasts 15 sec and each has a separate 24 sec cooldown. Both effects cannot occur simultaneously." Many of you are claiming a close to 100% uptime, but this is only realistic on a fight where you hardly move or there are few Phase changes (i.e. Steelbreaker, Lord Jara, Etc.) The downside will be when you have a certain proc you would prefer to not overwrite. If this is implemented, you need to allow both effects simultaneously and do some major tweaking or this bonus will be marginal and situational at best, rather than a clear DPS boost. As it stands now, this bonus is pretty much useless.

Suggested bonuses:2 piece: Your Insect Swarm can now proc Lunar Eclipse (same mechanic as Wrath) and your Moonfire can now proc Solar Eclipse (same mechanic as Starfire).4 piece: While Eclipse is active, each spell cast from current school (i.e Solar - Nature, Lunar - Arcane) increases the duration of Eclipse by 2 secs up to a maximum of 6 secs.

I hope they realise the eclipse cd issue, and change it to '100% chance to proc a lunar eclipse from a wrath crit' or something like that. I know many people (myself included) would like that.I also like what Eothlorien suggests.

Long time lurker here; I have never been impressed with any of the balance set bonuses and this is just one more straw that is about to break the camels back.

2pc T7- Back in T7 with IS glyph it was a dps gain to keep it up however, it was slightly cumbersome to do so.

4 pc T7- Blah bonus on Blizz's part but a gain none the less.

2pc T8- Great bonus but did it bring us to the top of meters? No, it made us competitive with everyone else and that is it. The fact that we were only competitive makes me believe that eclipse could be further buffed. 15% didn't make us OP in T8.

4 pc T9- WTF? Pass up the eclipse bonus from 2 pc T8(which isn't OP, so maybe make it baseline, or at least buff the baseline talent) or get this?

Then we get to T10. The 2 pc pigeon holes us into a resto talent; awesome I love resto. The new 4 pc was not thought of until they realized the original one they had was crap, it will take some more explaining and testing to see if it is good or not.

IMO our bonuses have been lackluster. Only our 2 pc T8 provided any significant increase and it didn't put us over the top, only made us competitive. After we drop that bonus what will keep us competitive in T10, extra stats from the gear? We will see...

I haven't done any math on it but the best way to modifiy this buff in my opinion is to have it extend the Eclipse buff rather then reduce the cooldown.

I have to say, I really like the fact that the duration and the cd is equal. It makes the game mechanics neat, and you don't need to add stuff in case of eclipse overlapping and such. I'm not sure if there's code to handle that in place now, since it's an impossible scenario.

Also, I like the boring old "adds % to damage" set boni. It has the benefit of never, ever being situational, which many of the more gimmicky ones tend to suffer from. A setbonus you will always gain benefit from is a good setbonus in my book.

[DRUID:[BALANCE]2 piece – 5% still makes this set bonus lack luster. Stop tying Balance Set bonuses to Resto talents. It does not make sense.

4 piece – This set bonus would provide roughly a 3% DPS increase on single target fights. This set bonus does nothing for AoE. Unless you itemize 4/5 T10 pieces of the gear perfectly, no one will bother with this. You need to make the 4pc worth at least a 5% DPS increase to consider (i.e. 8-10% dmg instead of 5%)

Some math for you... If roughly 50% of SF's or Wraths Crit, the crit dmg will be ~67% of these 2 spells dmg.5 + 10 = 1510/15 = 67%

Currently, These 2 spells do about 80% of the damage on single target bosses.

0.67 x 0.8 = 0.536or53.6% of the time the 5 pc set bonus will be effective.

Lets be generous and say the new T10 gear will push us to 60% avg crit:4 + 12 = 1612/16 = 75% dmg from crits

My question is with the change to the 4 piece bonus to leave a dot on your target for 4 seconds for the 5% of your crit damage from wrath or starfire, will it be overwritten by the next critical strike.

If that is the case then this 4 piece bonus is just slightly less useless as the last proposed one. During a lunar eclipse most of us are running very close to the crit cap if not exceeding it and with starfires going off just about ever 2 seconds the dot portion from the bonus would get very little time to do it's damage.

This makes that 4 piece bonus even less of a dps increase then what you are figuring due to overwrites/another more powerful spell is already active.

2pc - talent is in resto tree it's not strictly a resto talent, stop being retardly stubborn. Most druids talent it. Sounds fun, not perfect, but we still got a month and half to go. i.e. They could increase duration of buff if it doesn't proc enough.

4pc - I'm skeptical, but I expect it to change a few more times. Compare to 4t9 where it's static +dmg, you get only 5% of the crits over 4sec. A) % of casts that crit = %/5% potentionally gained (compared to the 4% of all casts) B)I will assume the crit-dot will not stack and will overwrite thereby losing even more of the extra 5% crit dmg

i'm a 4pc skeptic, but i'm not angry, people need to relax, it's not out yet either.